de Young Artist Studio

Every month the museum invites artists to install and demonstrate their art form at the de Young. This interactive program enables visitors to meet artists and gives the artists an opportunity to work with the public. Artists working in various media are encouraged to apply.

This residency will explore a series of unexplained broadcasts that interrupted the programming of numerous international television stations between the years of 1986 and 2009. Purportedly sent from a spacecraft at the outer reaches of our galaxy, these transmissions created an international controversy, evoking strong opinions from experts in many fields. Throughout the month of April, this evidence will be displayed in the Kimball Gallery as a multimedia installation with video projections, surround-sound audio, theatrical performances, and laser-etched acrylic panels. For the first time ever, a public dialogue will be possible and people will have the opportunity to develop informed opinions about this mysterious set of phenomena.

Jon Bernson is a San Francisco musician, multimedia artist, and interdisciplinary playwright who has released more than twenty albums under the following names: Ray’s Vast Basement, Window Twins, THEMAYS, and Exray’s (whose music was featured in David Fincher’s Academy-Award winning film, The Social Network). He has toured the US numerous times and scored more than a dozen plays and films, including his recent soundtracks for Rajiv Joseph's Gruesome Playground Injuries and Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot.In 2013, he wrote the play, A Guide to the Aftermath for StoryWorks, a collaboration between the Center for Investigative Reporting and Tides Theatre that explores the intersection of theater and journalism. Beautification Machine, his sound sculpture collaboration with Andy Diaz Hope, opened at the Catharine Clark Gallery in San Francisco this past summer, was presented by Miami Projects 2014, and then acquired by the Nevada Museum of Art. His most recent sound installation at the Sonos Studio in Los Angeles was the result of an unlikely collaboration between the Oakland band Tune-Yards, Berlin-based video artist Jem the Misfit, and P-a-t-t-e-r-n-s, an architecture firm. He is a columnist at Decoder Magazine, co-founder of the Howells Transmitter record label, and resident sound designer at Tides Theatre. Bernson also founded the Urban Music Program at the Sunset Beacon Center, where he has taught electronic music and recording to youth for fifteen years.

The Artist Studio program is made possible with major support from the Institute of Museum and Library Services’ Museums for America program.

Artist Studio Blog

The views expressed in the Artist Studio Blog are those of the participating artists-in-residence at the de Young, and do not reflect the opinions or viewpoints of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

De Young Artist Fellows Andy Diaz Hope and Laurel Roth are preparing for the final installation of their monumental triptych The Conflicts. Get a sneak peek at the culminating exhibition of their fellowship in the group show Punch Card, opening at Catharine Clark Gallery this Saturday, January 19, 2013. Hope and Roth will present the completed tapestries at the de Young in the Artist Studio...

Like any artist, December Artist-in-Residence Melissa Cody diligently does her research, and like a true innovator, she’s aware that you need to know the rules in order to break them. A fourth-generation Navajo weaver, Cody’s residency focuses on weaving and its relationship to communities and their environments. Although the main part of her residency takes place in public, she is also...

Artist-in-Residence Tamar
Assaf creates artwork articulating subtle social and ecological commentary on the environment. Her work raises awareness
of the human influence on animals in the wild and how entire ecosystems function as a delicate balance of interdependencies.
Throughout the month of August, Assaf invites visitors to engage in hands-on activities at the...

One of the most innovative components of the Artist Fellows program is the goal to reveal the process of artistic creation—the weeks (even years) of planning, the evolving ideas, and the constant back-and-forth that foments creativity. Throughout the month of July, Artist Fellow Sarah Wilson and her artistic partners, Catch Me Bird (C. Derrick Jones and Nehara Kalev), have been exhibiting this...